Routes to Home
by Grigiocuore
Summary: One defends a world that will never truly understand him; the other travelled the whole universe longing for a home lost in memory. The right route is written in the stars: both to home and to some mushy human happiness. Goku/Vegeta, sketches from a great Saiyan love.
1. Moon - Still a Beginning

_Hello everybody! Welcome to my first Dbz story in English. Those guys are a sort of long-term crush that sometimes just pops up again, out of the blue, and makes me study and write again to homage my dearest Prince. Some basic info: this is a series of drabbles, flash-fics and one shots based on the giant "what if" of a love story between Goku and Vegeta: it has no chronological order nor a single mood, so you will find funny stories, angst ones, harsh ones, mushy snapshots and everything between. Every chapter will be called after a star or a celestial body that I somehow find fitting. It's mainly an excuse to sum up all my drifting pieces; but it's also true that I can't write about my Prince without stars and moons and cold space lights._

_I hope you will enjoy my work. Now, let's begin._

**Moon – It Is a Beginning**

Their first night together wasn't perfect or dazzling or vaguely spectacular. They had been too confused and too excited; fumbling in rain-soaked clothes, discovering a body they already knew so well it wasn't a real discovery. Goku didn't know how to call it: he wasn't even sure it had been _good_. But it had been a beginning, and it could be worse.

He had tried to fool himself for three days. To think that_ yes,_ kissing Chi Chi never felt that way, and _yes_, remembering it was enough to twineand melt his stomach at the same time, but it had been just a beautiful, strange moment in the beautiful, strange thing he always had with Vegeta. Goku lived on moments like they were candies; if there is plenty of them then fantastic, but you could be happy enough with the sugar scraps. Only that this time, it wasn't working. And at the pit of everything stayed the same damn question.

_What if there would be no more chances? What if tomorrow we would fight and he dies and this night, this night would be the last I can talk with him?_

So he found himself at the Capsule Corp, smiling and having no idea what to do. _Let the world flow, it's wise, let it be a beginning, it's not the first time you run right across a wall._

And when Vegeta barked to follow him upstairs and crashed him against the guest room's drawer Goku answered eagerly, feeling like for another day the world would keep spinning.

Still, it definitively wasn't perfect or dazzling and not remotely spectacular.

Vegeta didn't make love; he didn't even have sex. He accomplished a task, acting with a surly precision that dragged you with it and didn't reveal anything. Undohis pants, don't take off anything else, _don't let him touch you, it's __**unnecessary**_**.** He knew what to do way more than Goku and his** stumbling** hands, but he did it like it was something to get rid of in the fastest, cleanest way, long enough to satisfy your groin, not enough to remember to have been naked in front of another being. It wasn't even the kind of love you have in war; if not a war where you fuck the enemy and you better keep ready to flee or whack him**. **

It was rough, it was so foreign. It was the loneliest thing Goku had ever seen.

So **a malincuore **he stopped the **magre** fingers** roaming around** his belt, held them tight.

-Vegeta, stop.-

-What?-

The tone was so icy it caught him by surprise. As so many times with him, every **discorso **crumbled and left only the simplest thing.

-_Slow down_.-

-Why?-

-Because.- He hesitated, sighing in the prince's hair. Gods, saying it seemed _so dumb_. -Because you should _enjoy_ it.-

_-_Ah! You're ridiculous, Kakarot.-

-Maybe, but not for that. This, this thing is good. It's beautiful.-

-It's very _stupid_, Kakarot.- His eyes didn't leave him.

_It's stupid and sentimental and a dumb jump in the dark. Don't you dare to retreat._

-Now move and let's do it.-

-No.-

-Kakarot-

-For Gods' sake, Vegeta, can't you just wait and see?- He didn't talk about trust.

_Wait and see, that this could be the biggest mistakes of our life and I don't regret anything. Wait and see that I'm so happy to be here, and this moment could be beautiful._

The other considered him for a long moment: calculating. Pondering things. Not saying anything.

Vegeta's no were unmistakable, but his yes lay in the silence.

So Goku raised his hands, brushed his shoulders, asking for permission. Slowly going down, slipping under the shirt. Smiling a message through the galaxies and half of the universe and **senseless/ crazy** distances

_Slow down. Let go. There is nothing to lose._

The body against his stiffened; he could felt the power **affiorare**, swirling just under the flesh. But Vegeta didn't **scostarsi**.

Goku's fingers rose along his back, pressing gently; firm, hot muscles shifted and arched against his touch. The shirt dropped somehow on the ground. Goku leaned in, **percorrere** the high cheekbone, the light dent of an fight over the left eye. Looking at him. This man that nearly ripped out his heart, and bled to death in his arms. That laughed at his pleas, and was the first to see his triumph. This strange, terrible man that knew and ignored so many things.

And suddenly Goku felt like laughing.

_It is a beginning. It could be worse._

He would show him. He would show him how to properly get undressed, how to follow the rhythm, how **wonderful/handsome** he was in that light. He would show him that there was nothing to be on the alert and this, _at least this_, didn't have to be a fight. He would show him everything, and it would be amazing.

The sun was setting far, behind the city. The room was drenched in blue and indigo and grey. The moon near enough to see every crater.

-What are you smiling at, Kakarot?-

-At you, Vegeta.-


	2. North Star - Harsh Noisy Warm

_Second chap! More to come, but it had been sooo much time since I wrote on Dragon Ball! I need time to train a bit. Very short, but it's more than a snapshot than anything else. Hope you like it, thanks for your support._

**North Star – Harsh Noisy Warm**

It had begun during night. Vegeta had barely had the time to walk down the corridor and glimpse the beaming white out of the window, before Kakarot and the brats practically knocked him down.

_Vegeta, look at it! It's snowing, it has been years, come here come here it's snowing!_

He had munched a grunt, pressing his fingers on the frozen glass; watching silently as the flakes twirled and shone and died in silent battles. He was so captivated not to note the kiss laid on his head.

Obviously they decided to go out just after breaking fast, wearing funny gibbous things that surely _couldn't_ be gloves and babbling about snowball plans and . He had said the cold wasn't an issue, that he had marched and bled in places way colder and way sharper than the Paos. The idiot still managed to wrap him up in a revolting raincoat.

_I don't need this horror, Kakarot._

_Yep, but it keeps you warmer. The fact that you didn't need it doesn't mean you could not have it._

He had walked out in the garden slowly, breathing in the smell of harsh winter mornings. Somehow by then the courtyard was already reduced to a desolate wasteland. Chunks of mud and grass streaked the snow; an uprooted, gnarled bush lied miserably on the white skin of the world. His cub was stuffing half-melted snow in his friend's hood, the other was trying to punch him in return with the sled, the idiot shrieked and squirmed wildly as if frozen water could kill him in seconds. Everything was terribly chaotic and unbelievably noisy.

Kakarot suddenly stumbled toward him, pressing him against his sopping skin and dripping all over his hair. Wrapping him in sweat and warmth and stupid joy.

-Vegeta, have you ever seen snow?-

He thought about a place far and probably forgotten, his knees skinned by cold, pale flakes falling on the graves as rot filled the light.

-No- he answered. -I've never seen snow.-


	3. Ursa Maior - Wide as Universe

_Third chap, and oh, this is sappy. But I think they kinda deserve it. Set somewhere after the Majiin Saga. The title refers to some random links with the word Ursa, "female bear": as if family, rough love, instinct, growls ready to turn into mush. Remembers you someone?_

_As always, thanks for your lovely reviews, and your support._

_PS: And c'mon. Veggie in Angry Caring Mode is just adorable._

**Ursa Maior – Wide as Universe**

They found him just behind the hospital.

He was crawling on his elbows, face-down in the graceful flowerbed around the building: plastered limbs shuffling frantically in the escape and the IVs still hanging from his arm. As they reached him Bulma let out a cry and began insulting him; Gohan knelt, shushing him with an experience that in every other son would be grotesque. Vegeta punched him hard enough to make his teeth wobble.

_Dammit Vegeta, calm down. He still has a concussion._

_He's alive enough to sneak out, so he's also alive enough to get reduced to a bleeding pulp. Especially by _me.

Goku didn't even try to protest; he just found himself back in the hospital bed with an horrible pointy thing pushed in his arm and a frankly useless handcuff, guarded by the prince sitting by him. Fights were a language, a way to know and sometimes to reach: and that punch had been carefully measured not to hurt further any spot.

He turned on the pillow, blinking through the painkiller haze. Vegeta was quiet, mouth clasped in a small pale line, breath almost imperceptible. Goku whined internally.

The silent one was a type of rage the prince mastered after coming to Earth, and in particularly since he decided there was something worth of not getting blown up by sheer wrath. It was more handleable, less funny and way more human than his devastating frenzies, but it was not a weapon: and therefore it bit harder and reshuffled dangerous things. Memories, cravings. Ghosts.

_And this time it's all my fault. Peachy._

He brushed tentatively the prince's knee. Hoping either to ease him or to trigger the monster hiding in his lips' curve.

-Vegeta.-

-Shut up Kakarot.-

-But...-

-I said _shut up._-

By the end of the sentence he was actually growling. Goku judged safer just laying there, trying not to look at his overly-bandaged left side. A shuffle of nurses' shoes in the corridor. He closed his eyes.

Then Vegeta kicked the bed, _hard_.

-_Well_? What is it?- Another kick, enough to make the metal joints squeaking. -Aren't you even trying to find an excuse for your foolishness?-

-What? You...-

-Have you any idea how stupid that pitiful escape attempt has been? Eh, have you?-

-I...-

-Answer me!-

-You just said me _to shut up_.-

-I'm a _Prince_, you clown, I don't have to be coherent!-

Silence fell over the room; Vegeta's rage a living thing pulsing over them. Goku expected a flood of rants, a well-landed punch on him or an unlucky piece of furniture but they didn't come. He just got silent again, looking stiffly at one of the bed's corner. There was something Goku was missing and that was bad, because with Vegeta the missing links were often other codes.

He tugged at the knee again. -C'mon, 'Geta. It isn't such a big deal. I'll get better in no...-

-I watched Trunks sleep for three days.-

The statement was so sudden Goku pondered if it was a drug-induced hallucination. But after all Vegeta's revelations came like meteorites: suddenly and right on your head.

-Uh. Err, good, I suppose.-

The prince untangled his legs and leaned in, looking right in his eyes. As always, it broke Goku's heart. -After we defeated Majiin Buu, I watched him sleep for three days. I passed in front of his room at night and I found myself staying there, watching him like a perfect fool. I had taken decisions over thousands of men, I had sent them to get their head blown up and die screaming and I believed I was great, that I was a true tactician, because neither mine nor their death had ever been enough to slow me. Then the brat spat a tooth on that bloody battlefield, _just a tooth_, and suddenly I couldn't move. The tooth, the fact it hurt him and I couldn't stop it. It filled the world. It became _everything_.

When I got here and saw you weren't in the room, I.-

A pause. Vegeta stopped, licking his lips. His hands were _shaking_. -If something happens to you and it's not me, I will. I will.-

Goku blinked, stunned beyond words. The man in front of him, the gifted, cruel man in front of him was shaking. Staring at him with an anguish and devotion as wide and terrible as the universe, all concentrated on him, all compacted in that single moment.

_How scared he was. How fucked. How lucky._

He swung on the bed, grabbing goofily a small hard hand. Smiling up with all his love.

-Oh Vegeta. That's so cu...-

Another kick. -Don't you_ dare_.-


	4. Antares - Heart of the Scorpion

_Geeky corner: Antares is actually called Heart of the Scorpion, and it's a star glowing with ruby red. The end of my astronomic knowledge. Anyway, I liked the suggestion under it: the heart of a scorpion, the most vulnerable spot of a predator's body. Seemed quite fitting._

_Enjoy!_

_P.S.: Yeah. I quoted Ygritte from ASOIAF._

**Antares – Heart of the Scorpion**

No place is safe. He always said it.

He had said it in the desolate peace of Namecc, looking at the sky over their hideout; glimpsing there falls of starships and thousand routes and maybe his death too.

A safe place, Kakarot? Ah, there is no such thing. You hide too long, you die. You fight and maybe, maybe as long as your body obeys and your heart pounds and someone wants to rip off your heart, you are safe. Fate could not touch you. But you don't feel it, you fool.

Vegeta had smiled, lips showing little hard teeth.

You don't even feel it.

He said it again the first night they shared, as hands stumbled upon each other's scars and Goku was desperately trying to make it romantic; and he had just hold Vegeta tighter, because that night it sounded almost like a blessing. He had repeated it shoving him away with bleeding hands and shaking with outrage and letting him silence all the words with a kiss. He had said it with a slave's mark on his forehead, and that time Goku cried because he nearly believed him.

No place is safe, Kakarot, and you're a fool. We will die. We will fall. We will see everything crumble and all the days end and your stupid faith die along the weakers' bodies.

At the center of Vegeta's illusions was the perfect lens of a microscope: the ghosts under it were very real and very near. You could not ignore them. Vegeta was fearless, Vegeta was strangely wise. You could not ignore him. You could not escape him.

_You know nothing. You're such a fool._

He repeated it everytime he woke up in bed, eyes wide and foreign prayers trapped in his teeth.

No place is safe, he said, as his arms wrapped around Goku's chest and pretended not to shiver. Remember it, Kakarot.

Yes Vegeta, he answered every time, holding tight his hands.

No place is safe.


	5. Venus - Prayer to the Ancestors

_New chap. I chose Venus because she's the Goddess of beauty, and the brightest rock in this part of universe. There's something very poetic in it._

**Venus – Prayer to the Ancestors**

Goku pulled at his hand.

-C'mon, 'Geta. I wanna show you something.-

-What is it, Kakaroth? And leave my hand. _Now_.-

-It's my kinto nimbus.-

-What?-

-C'mon 'Geta. It flies high, you could see till to horizon. It's beautiful.-

Vegeta scowled, looked down his arm. The hand didn't go anywhere.

Not many people knew that Vegeta could see beauty. He marched on bleeding corpses and stopped in front of a sunset; he barked orders and knew poems. Goku called it fascinating; Bulma called it bipolar.

-But why should I do something like that?-

-Because it's my present. For you.- Then he watched him like he was the most incredible thing in the whole universe, and Vegeta looked bewildered like every time he did it. They both knew he lost.

He mounted on the nimbus painfully slowly and with a look of pure distrust. When Goku guided gently his hands around his waist, he didn't protest.

-Ready to go?-

A grunt. -Let's see, Kakarot.-

Goku smiled. The kinto bursted in the air. He heard a muffled yelp against his neck, Vegeta's arms clutching around him. He laughed. They went up, up, swirling in the skies, blue and gold and white flowing around them, the magic warming and buzzling around like the one of his childhood. _Faster, faster, right into the belly of sky._

-Let me go, Kakarot. Let me go this instant.-

-Wait for it, Geta.-

The nimbus slowed, rose above the clouds. Suddenly under them was the whole world. Woods and peaks drenched in red and rivers so bright they shone like burning silver. Goku turned half expecting a scowl and found nothing like that.

Vegeta was smiling; smiling in the hungry way that made him look so young and invincible. He laughed, clinging to Goku's back, letting it rise in the wind.

-It's beautiful, isn't it?- Goku asked.

-Yes. The ancestors are laughing.-

How a out of place thing to say. How Vegeta.

And Goku found himself guiding his gold cloud up, up across the last nimbus, sun and dew licking his skin and Vegeta's laughters humming in his skin, and he lifted a hand to touch the light.

-Yes- he said -the ancestors are laughing.-


End file.
